Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 720G, 662 and 460 SoCs

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• fred666 - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link

  Is such a high core count a good idea for these mid/low range SoC?
  Wouldn't it be better to have only 2-4 good cores instead?

• Dragonstongue - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link

  or better yet, some high some mid and some very low core speed
  to keep power use minimal as possible
  
  would make too much sense apparently. the phone makers always seem to want keep battery size a year or 2 back in capacity, least that can be done is ensure the compute power is harnessed IMO
  
  this way things can truly sit in background barely use any power (example 500-800Mhz instead of in the Ghz range) and when need the actual performance a few ms later the fast cores come alive to burst the workload up.
  
  seeing as the current slew of phones are dime a dozen (not) they all (the makers) should be just as concerned about saving them from going to trash bin as they are about plopping new ones on the shelf with stupidly small batteries attached to high spec components (that do not sip power)

• StevoLincolnite - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link

  Advertising.
  4 cores looks better than 2 cores on the box.

• Kangal - Saturday, January 25, 2020 - link

  In terms of product segments, it goes like this (from worst to best):
  
  Entry Level (<$100, 1GB RAM, 16GB NAND, 480p Screen**)
  Sorry, not going to bother listing any!
  
  Low-end (~$100, 2GB RAM, 32GB NAND, 720p Screen**)
  QSD 439, 450, 625, 626, 630
  
  Midrange (~$200, 4GB RAM, 64GB NAND, 1080p Screen**)
  QSD 632, 636, 460, 662, 665, 670, 660
  
  High-end (~$300, 6GB RAM, 128GB NAND, +1080p Screen**)
  QSD 675, 710, 712, 730, 720, 765
  
  Flagship / Luxury (>$500, 8GB RAM, 256GB NAND, +1440p Screen**)
  QSD 835, 845, 855, 865
  **specs and prices are just a rough guide, duh!
  
  As was said, it's about Marketing and Pricing.
  Qualcomm has been a big loser in the chipset marketshare from 2018-2019, mainly, as other vendors have decided to compete harder, such as, Samsung Exynos, HiSilicon Kirin, MediaTek.
  
  And while Qualcomm can retake that marketshare back easily, it will come at reduced profit-margins, and affects their future plans. Right now, they're in the "defensive phase" which means they will imitate Intel and try to obfuscate their products as much as possible. This is to confuse the market, companies, and consumers... in order to maintain the status-quo that they are still "the best". Usually, the leading competitor or ethical companies will do the opposite and try to make their offerings as simple as possible, see AMD. It is no secret that there are product segments and stacks in the industry. Despite Qualcomm's best efforts, usually the knowledgeable enthusiasts such as myself and Anandtech can tread through the muddy waters and figure out where each chipset is placed, as shown above.
  
  If you disagree, just see the history of the chipsets:
  
  OLDEST: QSD 617, QSD 650, QSD 653, QSD 835
  OLDER: QSD 625, QSD 636, QSD 712, QSD 845
  NEWER: QSD 630, QSD 665, QSD 730, QSD 855
  COMING: QSD 460, QSD 670, QSD 765, QSD 865
  

• flyingpants265 - Saturday, January 25, 2020 - link

  SD845 and SD855 phones are available for $300/$400. Obviously we can safely ignore the $900+ options

• Kangal - Sunday, January 26, 2020 - link

  True, that we have seen those.
  But those are moreso "upper midrange" phones with the "luxury" processors. We used to call that segment the "flagship killer". They don't compare against true flagship phones.
  
  I also wanted to post a link to a previous comment I made. It's basically a list of all Android ARM SoC's between 2011 and 2019, and it is listed from worst to best based on their properties (single-core performance, multi-thread performance, graphics performance, and battery life properties). I know there's a couple few extra Snapdragon chipsets that were released afterwards, the latest Apple chipset, two Kirin chipsets, and a handful of new Exynos chipsets that are missing from the list. But overall, it's a pretty decent list in terms of accuracy and amount of chipsets, so here it is:
  https://www.gsmarena.com/newscomm-38594p5.php

• eek2121 - Sunday, January 26, 2020 - link

  Qualcomm basically owns the market in the US. The only other major player is Apple.

• PeachNCream - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link

  I think pricing is more important that specifications. As long as Qualcomm can hit the right price bracket with an eight core SoC (and power consumption target), then why not sell one for low end phones?

• fred666 - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link

  It's always a matter of compromise. If they put 4 cores instead of 8, each core could be faster (price and power consumption being equal).

• Spunjji - Monday, January 27, 2020 - link

  That's the answer - they wouldn't be equal. Price would be higher and power consumption would be higher, both of which are killers for low-end devices.